Step 3: Drill Pilot Holes in the Rack

Step 4: Review

My 11-year old son asked why I didn't combine the mitten rack with a coat rack. I told him that designer friend I know saw it and also suggested I ha...

Parents know there's nothing so crazy-making as a morning scramble for winter clothes. Kids seem to leave mittens and gloves everywhere they go. When you have ten minutes to get out the door, their gloves are always at the bottom of a backpack or at a friend's house. Or worse -- you find three gloves, all lefties.

This winter I built a rack that's cut down on some of the morning chaos. It holds onto mittens/gloves neatly, and gives you a quick visual inventory of them. So a parent can glance at it and say, "Find your gloves before you go to bed. Start looking on the car floor."

The mitten rack uses clothespins, string, and scrap wood, and it goes together in about 15 minutes.

Features:

-- Clothespins are a standard item, so they're easy to replace, disassemble, or reassemble. Because of wear and tear, we've lost two pins over the last six months, but it was easy to replace the broken parts.

-- At first I affixed the pins directly to the board, but when they are attached by strings it's easier for hands to grasp the pin and attach the mittens quickly. And when you need the mittens, it's easy to reach out and snap them off.

-- The design is scalable to your family. A short rack accommodates two adults, and a longer one would aid a larger clan.

Step 1: Cut the Board

Look for an old piece of lumber a few feet long. A scrap of one-by would be fine (in this example, I'm using fir tongue-and-groove). The length depends on how many mittens you need to hang. You can use the lumber as is, but I ripped it down so it's vaguely square in dimension. In my case, this was to get rid of the tongues and the grooves.

Nice job! I don't know about you but I sometimes end up with a single shoelace, and being a thrifty (former) New Englander, I can't see throwing them out. They would work pretty well for your clever little contraption, since they are easy to thread. Just a thought.